Sunday, December 22, 2013

My friend, Rafael, and I took advantage of his temporary bachelor status, while his family got a head-start on the holiday travel, and we squeezed in two games over the weekend, his High Elves versus my Lizardmen.

I learned that people who have Google+ accounts can read the Comments in the Google+ Photos album (as far as I can tell, anyway). So I can offer battle reports again, albeit for a smaller audience.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

It's been a while since my Lizardmen army has seen the gaming table, so I relished the opportunity to bring out the colors, at a game in Culpeper with my friend, Aaron. Aaron was recently bitten by the Warhammer Fantasy bug, and he bought the Island of Blood starter set.

Aaron arranged the game at a local game store, which had just opened in Culpeper. Aaron promoted the game, in order to generate buzz and grow a more local wargaming community. Culpeper is about an hour-and-half away from me, but I was glad to lend a hand and help spark some more interest in our great hobby!

Aaron assembled, primed, and basecoated all of his Skaven forces in only two weeks! Bravo! Not shown in this first photo are his Rat Ogres, another weapon team, and his other hero character. Aaron will be adding more washes, highlights, and details, but this is a great start. Always a pleasure to see a painted force across the table.

Aaron devised his own scenario, to use as a graduated learning aid. His Skaven kidnapped a Skink Priest, and a small holding party of 500 points is tasked to delay the pursuing Lizardman army. The Lizardmen have a full 1000 points, but they must spread out their deployment from reserves, in 350/350/300 splits, over the first 3 turns. Victory points are awarded for the ability of the Lizardmen to force the Skaven off the river vs the duration that the Skaven can hold their position or remain in play.

The Lizardmen succeeded in the near-impossible task of dislodging the Skaven from the river by Turn 2, but not by anything that the Lizardmen did. The Skaven had the misfortune to have their Warplock Engineer blow himself up on his first ever attempt to cast magic. This frightful calamity caused the other two units to turn tail and run! River clear. Mission accomplished!

Another Skaven player joined forces with Aaron for a second game. We played a basic Battleline scenario with 1000 points per side.

Unfortunately, I stopped taking photos. But here are a couple of Aaron's photos:

Salamander fire and Skink Priest magic (Curse of the Midnight Wind, of all things!) softened up the Skaven, while, in return, the Skaven warpstone-powered war machine was belabored by the ill fortune of blowing up, and their magic was likewise cursed with Miscasts. Lizardmen pressed the advantage and charged their weakened eternal nemesis. Here, the rodents turn tail and flee.

In the upper left, Plague Monks and Slave Rats surround the mighty Stegosaurus, in an attempt to bring it low. But the Steg had initiated the encounter by braving the icy waters of the powerful river, giving the Stegadon an unheard-of jump boost in Initiative, enabling him to, again, soften the foe beforehand (literally, by Stomping them underfoot!).

Ultimately, the Lizardmen capitalized on their early advantage and their good fortune (my dice were HOT, for a change!), and they claimed victory.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

This weekend I finally took the shrinkwrap off of my Terraclips terrain set that I bought over two years ago. I knew that as soon as I took it out of the box, I would never get it back in -- it would explode into 10 times its original volume, which meant, where do I store this stuff?

The new momentum that my game group has, playing Malifaux, tempted me to throw caution to the wind. I played with my new "Lego toys for adults" and loved it.

The artwork on these tiles is fantastic. Just about every piece is different, and it's loaded with little details, like spilled applesacks, leaking pipes, rubbish, sewer grills, etc.

The design is very impressive, too. Very well engineered, in terms of fit, versatility, rigidness, and compatibility with miniatures bases. I'm surprised we don't see more of these, regularly being used, say, in the game stores.

I have another box set, the one with the buildings. Now I wish I had picked up the sewers set, as well.

Turns out I have some containers that hold these few assembled pieces perfectly, along with the remaining spares.

So glad to finally be able to add the third dimension to my skirmish games. This will probably motivate me to work on my custom-made canal district.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

I feared Regiments of Renown was going to wither on the vine. As it so happens, I requested to play it as my birthday wish, and my good pal, Steve, was willing to humor me. The games were such a blast, we may very well keep the momentum moving forward after all!

We planned to play a 3-round series, plus a game of Malifaux, so that Steve could gain some practice with his Colette crew. While we did play 3 games of Regiments of Renown, we treated the first game as a throw-away, instructional game, so that Steve could refresh himself on basic Warhammer rules, and so that both of us could work out the kinks that Regiments of Renown adds to the game. Of our follow-on "proper" games, we both won one game, and we decided to save the tie-breaker for another day!

Steve played Bretonnians, and I played my same Orcs & Goblins list. We kept the terrain the same and just switched sides -- the confrontation takes place in a swampy, jungle, near a ruined fort.

Here is a photo from our first competitive game. It is at the end of Turn 1, and the Orcs rush out from the safety of the jungle canopy, risking the open ground while in sight of the Bretonnian archers. Luckily for the Orcs, the archers are mere, untrained peasants, and they can't shoot for crap.

Meanwhile, on back side of the fort, the Squig Hoppers and Goblin Wolf Rider harass the Bretonnian noble and his Yeoman accomplice, in an effort to delay or prevent them from flanking the Orc main force.

'Tis a suicide mission for the poor gobbos (even the Squigs' ravenous maws can't bite through that damn plate mail), but they succeed in delaying the Bretonnian hero wannabe. His impetuous plan spells doom on the men-at-arms that he left behind. They are felled by goblin arrows, orc choppas, and one lone, but very hungry, Squig.

Here is the deployment for the final game, with the Bretonnians using the dense landscape to force Squig Hoppers to risk charging through the mucky swamp.

The noble knight again, impetuously, leads the way with his Yeoman, taunting and baiting the gaggle of orcs and gobbos. Perhaps not what he quite expected, all three Squig Hoppers launch across the swamp, along with the Rockjaw, the orc Leader, and his Regimental Standard-bearer, to boot. Every one of them survive the dash across the swamp!

The battle becomes a protracted stalemate, as neither Leader can manage to kill the other. Bretonnians manage to kill enough of the other combatants, though, to force a Rout test, which the low-Leadership Orcs indeed fail, and they abandon the field.

We shall meet again, human scum, and you shall be crushed under our green heel!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

I've been up to a lot lately in the hobby, both gaming and painting. While that feels like a great step forward, I've also encountered a stumbling block in terms of sharing my hobby on-line.

I learned that the last two battle reports that I linked to -- from the blog, from Google+, from WAMP, from Dragonpainting forum -- were a bust, in that the viewers cannot see the Comments alongside the photos. I write Comments to provide the commentary of the battle report, so without being able to read them, the battle report is just a story-less photo album. That's a big disappointment, since most of the work goes into writing the commentary, and it provides a large part of the entertainment value.
I've checked the settings in Google+, and I can't figure out what needs to be adjusted that I haven't already tried. Irksome, because the audience could see the comments before. If anyone has any insight, please share!

In any case, here are some of the things I've been up to.

First off, Malifaux Monday is now underway, and it seems like it's going to stick. The more I play it, the more I'm a fan of the new rules release. I think it's a step forward for the industry in rules design. It sets a strong example in how to take an overly complex ruleset and streamline it by layering the complexity. The complexity is definitely still there, but it can be peeled like an onion.

Here is my Ramos crew in action. Howard Langston, the Steamborg Executioner, is farting a steam cloud to hide the crew, while they claim the objective center-ground.

This past weekend, I played another game, this one with a friend who played the Ortega Gang, which I had purchased from Scott Radom, the gentleman who I challenged in the WAMP Ladder painting competition. The painting challenge featured my Ramos Malifaux crew versus Scott's Ortega Malifaux crew, and we used those same exact crews in the game this weekend! So the game looked really good, in terms of fully painted miniatures. But I forgot to take pictures! Looks like I'll need a rematch.

That Malifaux game was Friday evening. On Saturday, my friend, Rafael, and I played our rematch of the Storm of Magic expansion for Warhammer Fantasy. I have photos for a battle report, but until I can figure out a new way to post battle reports, I'll just show a couple of highlight photos.

Here's a good action shot of the Frostheart Phoenix swooping in to wreak havoc on my Spearmen unit.

A view of the overall battlefield. It's only the top of Turn 1, and the armies are already locked in brutal combat, with the very mobile High Elf army launching forward on the offensive.

This game was a blast. Literally, actually -- since the Wizard's Tower in the lower-right, was utterly destroyed and left a big, smoking crater, taking out the Supreme Sorceress in the process. As a matter of fact, before we called time, three Wizards had been utterly vanquished, leaving one Wizard on each side. It was anyone's game, when we called it. Lots of fun.

So speaking of the Supreme Sorceress, she's pushed her way to the top of the painting queue. Here are photos of the Work-In-Progress. I'm using her as an exercise for painting female skin. As you can see, she's showing a lot of it!

Jen Haley painted the studio version, and, I have to say, I've gained a lot of respect for Ms. Haley as I've attempted my amateur paintjob on this model. Jen's blends are smooth as silk, and her definitions are crisp. Using her version as a guide is a great way to push my own technique and ability.

Storm of Magic is an expansion to Warhammer Fantasy. The Magic Phase is amped with super-powerful spells. You also have the option to introduce more Monsters to the game, which is probably more of what attracted me to the game. I wanted an excuse to field some models that won't see regular game-play for quite a few years, until their faction or army catches up with them from the depths of the paint-queue.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

I forgot to post this. I managed to put those Squig Hoppers on the table, after all. After seeing my prospects for playing Regiments of Renown diminish to practically zero, an opportunity came out of the blue. This was over a week ago.

The game was a blast. I played against Erik's Lizardmen. It was so nice to put my old Orc & Goblin models on the table again. This game is basically what I was trying to do, when I restarted the hobby back in 2006. It's taken awhile just to come full circle!

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

I've been quiet on the blog recently. Ironically, it's because I've been busier in my hobby. I've been squeezing in more painting and more playing, leaving less time to talk about it!

The odd thing is that the ebb and flow of game-choice has been totally unpredictable. The Squig Hopper project was intended for imminent games of Regiments of Renown. Almost as soon as I finished painting the models, the most promising candidate to play Regiments of Renown with me had to back out (and understandably so, given the choices of his game-time budget against real life). That was a couple of weeks ago. Just today, though, another gamer buddy contacted me to arrange a game. After some back-and-forth among our choices, we settled on Regiments of Renown! To play tomorrow! Irony.

The two games that have emerged to the forefront in recent weeks have been Warhammer 40K (another irony, given my previous lukewarm regard for the game) and the new Second Edition (2E) for Malifaux. 40K gained some legs, since a local game store, Victory Comics in Falls Church, started hosting an escalation league.

An escalation league is an ideal opportunity for me to dip my toe back into 40K. I've always enjoyed smaller games anyway. The league is starting at 500 points and slowly inching up only 250 points every two weeks. My kinda pace. This is a great opportunity to put my head into list-building, which I decided is necessary for me to truly enjoy the game for what it is. Indeed, I've been having a fun time rediscovering the game. And it gives me great motivation to work on painting my 40K collection.

Here is the 750-point game I played this past weekend. Naturally, I brought a knife to a gunfight, as you can see my all-infantry army huddled in the corner, trying to figure out what to do against an armored company.... That happened because, up until that game, I developed my list against an opponent who was likewise developing an infantry-heavy list. I really didn't expect to face off against two tanks and two armored transport carriers at 750 points. So, yeah, I'm learning a lot.... (the hard way, as usual!)

After this game, I was motivated to paint up more Fire Warriors, to replace the AT-43 proxies that I was using for two out of three of my units. I decided I would try out an oil wash on the Fire Warriors. Here is the result, applied on zenithal black and gray primer.

This is my second try at an oil wash. I've had high expectations that oil washes would be near-perfect for my style. Not so much. I think it's best for very specific applications, not as a general wash. It would have been a lot less trouble and just as effective if I had mixed my own acrylic wash, like I usually do.

On a related note, I tried out GW and Secret Weapon washes on a few models here, as well. Same conclusion. I can actually do it better. GW and Secret Weapon washes are very handy for many applications, but for general-purpose, assembly line painting, I'm going to return to mixing my own.

A quick note about Malifaux 2E. I'm very satisfied with the direction they took the game. It met my high hopes, to streamline of the rules and manage the complexity of the profiles. Great job, Wyrd Miniatures.

I am now participating in a group that has started a weekly Malifaux Monday event. We've had two meetups so far, and I'm learning my Ramos crew. It's still challenging to figure out all the options, combinations, and sequencing. Malifaux is still more brain-burning than Freebooter's Fate or Alkemy (still my preference), but it's a tremendous improvement over 1st Edition Malifaux. Like 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy and 6th Edition Warhammer 40K, the improvements make the difference between me playing the game and not playing the game. Fun times ahead!

Oh, and one last thing, for 40K, I have begun working on the mysterious Project K.....

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Played a small game of 750 points. It was a great learning game. I've really liked pruning down to low-point games for the escalation league, in order to learn the rules and the army from the ground up. Here's a link to the photo gallery and blow-by-blow. Feel free to add commentary!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

I met most of my goals with this project, but I got burnt out before I could really dress them up and fine-tune them. That's OK, though. My buddy, Oko, is going to hook me up with more Squig Hoppers, so that I can try some other ideas down the road.

Goals that I met:- Brightly colored squigs, across the violet-to-orange range, using a combination of washes and wet-blending.- Distinct facial expressions for both the squigs and the goblins, to showcase their personality.- Sufficient contrast to distinguish both the squigs and the goblins.- Different patterns on the hoods' trim.

Goals I didn't meet:- More colors on the goblins.- Skin patterns or mottling on the squigs.- One more pass on blends and details.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The prospect of playing the new skirmish variant of Warhammer Fantasy, Regiments of Renown, is motivating me to finally paint a unit of Squig Riders. Here, I've sketched my basic color theme.

I love these models, because of their character, and because they lend themselves to so much creativity in terms of color choices and cloak designs. Unfortunately, to make the colors work as a coherent unit, I think you have to sacrifice some of the inventiveness you could explore for individual models. Otherwise, the unit will suffer from the "spilled Easter basket" effect, a lesson I learned from painting goblins a few years ago. The solution to this problem is simple, though. Paint these models as a unit, and then acquire some more models to paint individually! Alas. I take the miniatures addiction to another level.

I originally planned to paint the goblins' skin tone a desaturated yellowish-green. The theory was that the goblins would show well against the multi-colored squigs, due to three elements of contrast: complementary colors, desaturation, and monochrome vs multi-chromatic. When I test-painted the first one, I immediately didn't like it. I think it was because the complementary color violated a rule of proportion for the color wheel. I think if complementary colors are too equal in proportion, then they clash. I've always approached complementary colors as accents, to avoid clashing. Here, the proportion of the goblin to the squig is too close together. Either that, or I just needed to desaturate the goblin tone some more.

Regardless, after rescinding the original plan, and scratching my head to figure out what to do, I decided I kinda liked the look of the khaki skin tone that I laid down for a base (the squigs started out the same color, actually). The question is then, what is a good color to use to shade the goblin skin-tone? I think this is where the Rackham style might work well -- shade with a variety of colors, which visually cancel each other out, while adding a lot of depth and interest. I'm going to try purples and dark olives and see how that works. Maybe the olives will give the impression of a "greenskin", without having to make it blatant. If not, that's OK, since I've always liked "Froudian" goblins with human skin-tones, too.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

I was going to wait until the Darklands contest ended before posting my finished vermin lord here, but it's hard to tell what the status of the contest is, so I'm going to share the pics now. This figure was fun to paint, and it's the largest figure I've painted to date. What made it so enjoyable was the quality of the sculpt and cast, able to offer such rich detail and variety of texture.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

I've been pondering about what the best medium might be for posting hobby updates.

Blog. The blog format offers a clean presentation for a mix of text and images. It provides some interesting statistics, but it doesn't lend itself well to feedback, I suspect because it may require a "captcha" in order to post a comment.

Forums. I've been a long-time and active member on the WAMP forum. I recently joined the DragonPainting forum as well. Forums offer a nice structure for organizing discussions. They offer tools for following discussions of interest while ignoring others. However, it seems there are only about a dozen really active participants on a forum at any given time. Comments are hit-or-miss, but there are generally enough to keep me going.

Social media. I just joined some Communities on Google+, and I'm experimenting with posting stuff there. I chose Google+ over Facebook, because I can more easily post photos from my Picasa albums onto Google+. Plus, I've always preferred Google+ over Facebook, in terms of presentation, intuitive ease-of-use, and privacy control. The feedback for posts is excellent. Participants can leave a quick +1, or they can engage in dialogue. The format is real-time sequential, though, which doesn't lend itself to organizing lengthier topics for discussion.

My goal is to have a good dialogue. After posting to the blog for over a year, it hasn't lent itself well towards dialogue. However, I just realized today that there's a setting that might turn off the captcha. If that works, that might encourage more comments. On the other hand, it opens a door to potential spam. I tweaked the setting to see what might happen.

So give it a try! Let me know what your preferred posting medium is. Or remark on something about the blog that you haven't had a good chance to say before -- about painting, gaming, specific projects, events, whatever. Hope to hear from you!

Monday, September 30, 2013

I'm calling him done. There are a few things I could do to touch him up, but my interests have moved on.

While I'm half-tempted to finish the rest of the Trollbloods I started this past month, I need to use my time wisely. The prospect of playing Hordes with these miniatures any time soon has fallen to the wayside. Therefore, I must steer my energy towards nearer-term gaming opportunities and/or competitions.

This week, I redirect my attention to the Orcs & Goblins. Or more specifically, the Goblin Squig Riders. They are the one unit I still need to paint in order to play the Regiment of Renown variant of Warhammer. A 40K campaign is also on the horizon, so that opens the door to Tau, Kroot, Eldar, and Orks. I will definitely take advantage of that opportunity to finally build and paint the Gnarlock beasts.

Tonight is the final deadline for the WAMP forum's online contest for the Darklands range of models by Mierce Miniatures. I already submitted my entry, the wicked "Scar-Scath" vermin lord! I'll post the montage of that figure to my blog in a day or two.

Friday, September 27, 2013

With all the recent activity associated with NOVA Open and the NCMSS show this past month, I'm a bit behind on posting to the blog. I've accumulated a backlog of items that I've added to my "lead mountain", or "grey horde", or whatever else folks like to call the evidence of their addiction to this hobby. I'll call it my......Mountain of Mayhem!

I'll roll out the goods to the blog gradually, starting with one of my Kickstarter pledges -- Godslayer.

Here are the two full-size soft-cover books. The top book contains the world setting, and the book below it contains the rules. They come in this very fine slip-cover:

The world setting is impressive. I get the feeling this guy has been writing this background for 25+ years, since he was a kid. The style is old-school fantasy, hearkening back to the classic Worm of Ouroboros of the 1920's. Worlds float in a breathable aether, and the races are reflections of classical history and mythology. It's great to see a fresh take on a fantasy setting -- something other than yet another Tolkien derivative (much as I love Tolkien), and yet something that still feels familiar and appropriate...mmm....classic.

Now I wish I could say as much positive about my first impression of the rules. My initial take is that they are just another basic skirmish rule-set. There's nothing that sets it apart at first blush. And it continues the tradition of not allowing pre-measuring -- one of my personal pet peeves. But, hey, I will reserve further judgment until I play a proper game.

The miniatures are nice (and metal!). The poses are dynamic, and the sculpting is skillful and painter-friendly. I look forward to working on them.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

The NCMSS show is held annually in Northern Virginia. This year, it was held on September 14th, and the show had a solid turnout. There was a downturn in fantasy figures, but that was largely due to a competing show in New Jersey, which stole at least three of the NCMSS's regular fantasy painters. Still, attendance was strong, and we saw a great variety of high-end painting and creative modeling.

Last year, I served as an apprentice judge for the NCMSS show. Since then, I've accumulated even more experience in organized competition painting -- as a participant, as an event organizer, and as a judge. This year, the NCMSS invited me to bear the mantle of a full-fledged judge. One thing that has surprised me since I began judging, is how time-consuming and intense it can be. This particular exercise, beginning with the judge's organizational meeting and following through with team walk-through's, individual scoring, and special awards scoring, consumed three-and-a-half hours! That left very little time throughout the rest of the day to study pieces in detail, take photographs, and peruse the vendor hall. I ended up rushing through all of those other activities. Still, I like being involved in the organizational side of the hobby and helping it carry on its traditions and reach out to new enthusiasts.

In no particular order, here are some highlights that I managed to capture.

The following two entries were neck-in-neck to earn the special award, Best Ancient. The Greek hoplite barely squeezed out the win over the Roman cavalryman. On the bust, the textures on the woods and metals were superb. I also liked all of the extra added-on details on the inside of the shield, like the scuffs, tassles, and loose cord.

The photo doesn't show it very well, but the base is an incline that is suspended in air. Note the powdered snow on the horse's legs. I like the dull colors -- makes it realistic for the period and helps sell the illusion of a cold winter day. The shield design is freehand.

A diorama that tells a lighter story. Nice to see, compared to the next one!

This was a phenomenal piece. So realistic

This one shows how much you can expand the scene, when you use a smaller scale. Excellent groundwork. Really puts your head in a wintry, ankle-spraining field.

This is a close-up view of Joy Schoenberger's St. Patrick. This piece won a Gold at the NOVA Open two weeks before, and it won another Gold at NCMSS, along with two special awards: one for Best Medieval and one for Best Irish or Irish-American! Note how the floor and hem of the robe show the effect of light coming in off-frame through a stained-glass window.

Freehand clovers. This figure is probably true 25mm.

A fine piece by Kevin Townsend. I first saw this one at the MFCA show. I was glad to see it again under better light. The tavern section has so much character, it's practically "the 4th Minstrel".

Another fine piece by Kevin. Now do it in 28mm, Kevin! ;-)

My jab at Kevin reminds me of an amusing aside. I was chatting with a fellow after the show, about how I've slowly moved from painting game figures towards dipping my toe in display/competition painting. I remarked how display painting is typified by those "larger-scale 54mm figures", which I have yet to do. He laughed and said that was the first time anyone has ever referred to his miniatures as "larger-scale". That was an interesting eye-opener, about one of differences in these flavors of the hobby.

Speaking of smaller scale, check out the sunflowers, the poker cards, and the dog in guy's shirt!

Check out the footprints in the sand.

This piece was amazing. Had all sorts of moving parts. The propeller was spinning all day long.

Look at the tile floor on the bathroom.

This piece might have had the best weathering, rust, and dirt effects I've ever seen.

This was a really cool forced-perspective piece. Never seen something like this before. It took you off-guard at first, because the far tank crew used smaller-scale models. The scene made sense only if you looked at it from this viewing angle. It worked even better if you closed one eye.

A similar idea. This artist is having a blast, ha, ha.

This is a great off-beat piece by Tim Stormer, the NCMSS's very hard-working Adjutant. I think he said he did this using pastels like weathering pigments.

Here's the latest work by Kevin Townsend. This won Best of Show for Fantasy.

Here's another stunner by Kevin, which I first saw at MFCA.

Two more by Kevin...

Here was a favorite of mine. I think it got a Silver, but I think it deserved a Gold. Mounting it on the machine nut is a great touch!

And finally, here is Rhodes Davis' Wolverine -- a better photo than what I captured at NOVA Open.

Ah, I almost forgot. I won Gold awards for my Alkemy and Malifaux figures, my "Border Dispute" diorama, and the Wargaming special award for my Freebooter Pirates and Dystopian Wars Prussians. Yay!